


Ghost in the Raft

by Glides



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom, Thunderbolts (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Marvel Cinematic Universe Fusion, Ant-Man (2015) Spoilers, Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) Spoilers, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Marvel 616/MCU Crossover, Marvel Cameos, Marvel Cinematic Crossover Exchange, Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase One Compliant, Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase Two Compliant, Marvel References, Marvel Universe, Other, Post-Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Battle of New York (Marvel), Post-Civil War (Marvel), Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Homecoming Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-07-27 09:51:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20044018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glides/pseuds/Glides
Summary: An internal document was passed around among some of the higher level employees of the Raft. All that was known about it from only a select few outside was that it was located somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, estimated to be closest to Ryker's Island. This is the only document privately published in the prison, only on paper, no online trace to be found. This was after SHIELD's internal documents had been leaked, estimated to be around April 2018 judging by the date listed on the header, approximately two to three hours before the supernatural occurrence referred to in popular culture as the Blip. The timing of this document's release and all that was to follow can be explained by its proximity to those in the prison with immense telepathic capabilities.Everything that occurred after this document was internally published is up to speculation. As per our duties, we will ascertain exactly what happened here. The contents that follow arenotto be released or shown anywhere.





	1. Persona Non Grata

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An internal document was passed around among some of the higher level employees of the Raft. All that was known about it from only a select few outside was that it was located somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, estimated to be closest to Ryker's Island. This is the only document privately published in the prison, only on paper, no online trace to be found. This was after SHIELD's internal documents had been leaked, estimated to be around April 2018 judging by the date listed on the header, approximately two to three hours before the supernatural occurrence referred to in popular culture as the Blip. The timing of this document's release and all that was to follow can be explained by its proximity to those in the prison with immense telepathic capabilities. 
> 
> Everything that occurred after this document was internally published is up to speculation. As per our duties, we will ascertain exactly what happened here. The contents that follow are _not_ to be released or shown anywhere.

_The following is a list of the current occupants of the classified prison facility for those displaying metahuman abilities or those who have been in close proximity to those possessing metahuman abilities. Each and every one of these occupants should be considered as highly dangerous to the public at large. Each and every occupant must be kept under maximum security at all times. Consequences for socializing with any occupant will be immediate termination as well as additional punishments._

_For your safety and for the safety of those around you, this information is considered highly classified and cannot be legally shared with anyone outside of the Raft._

_Happy trails,_

_General Thaddeus Ross, Former Secretary of State_

**Current Residents:**

Hernan Alvarez, "Alveus," Turk Barrett, Georges Batroc, Emil Blonsky, Edward Brock, Dmitri Bukharin, Boris Bullski, Christopher Colchiss, Carlos Creel, Elaine Coll, Ann Darnell, James Darnell, "Davos," Rita DeMara, Brendan Doyle, Raniero Drago, Ross Everbest, Gordon Fraley, Wilson Fisk, Macdonald Gargan, Gennady Gavrilov, Erik Gelden, Kurt Gerhardt, Donald Gill, Justin Hammer, Bruno Horgan, Abner Jenkins, Rachel Leighton, Janice Lincoln, Phineas Mason, Quincy McIvey, Karl Mordo, James Natale, Giuletta Nefaria, Galina Nemirovsky, Alexei Niven, Brigid O'Reilly, Lee Owlsley, Arthur Parks, Yuri Petrovich, Lester Poindexter, Melvin Potter, William Russo, Basil Sandhurst, Marcus Scarlotti, Sinthea Schmidt, Herman Schultz, Clifton Shallot, William Simpson, Taylor Slade, Lancaster Sneed, Michael Steel, **Samuel Sterns,** Willis Stryker, Glenn Talbot, George Tarleton, Adrian Toomes, Kondrati Topolov, "Ultimo," Simon Utrecht, Gregar Valski, Klaus Voorhees, Patricia Walker, Calvin Zabo, Helmut Zemo, Arnim Zola

**Former Residents:** Clinton Barton, Scott Lang, Wanda Maximoff, Samuel Wilson

All have unfortunately been pardoned for their past crimes at the request of Anthony Stark, which we will respect for now.

Newest arrival as of most recent estimate: **Ava Starr**

The only inmate who has ever successfully escaped the Raft, referred to in the system by Anthony Masters, is still at large.

The only inmates to have died before the implementation of the current facility is Helmut Gruler and Ophelia Sarkissian, though their contributions to Director Ross were immense and will serve well for future military use. Such information is classified to all but the highest level. These were the first two metahumans to have ever been contained for security purposes, along with Dr. Zola in 1944. All three were apprehended by government operative Steven Rogers.

**Zola-Ultimo System:** for all new employees of the Enhanced Individual Containment System, commonly known by the pejorative known as the Raft, this entire structure is run on an artificial intelligence created by combining aspects of the programmed consciousness of Dr. Arnim Zola, a scientist of great renown for SHIELD, and a prototype developed by the deceased scientist Dr. Kearson DeWitt, referred to as **"Ultimo."** You are more than familiar by now with the disaster in Sokovia thanks to a similar artificial intelligence developed by one Anthony Stark, that was an advanced version of this prototype, far easier to control and manage and not prone to fits of sentience like his disaster that killed thousands of people. This system can be used for containment and suppression for any enhanced abilities should you need it.

With the remnants of the brilliant minds of Drs. DeWitt and Zola, the Raft enjoys the greatest level of security on the planet, protecting civilized society from these dangerous and deranged individuals. Though we currently possess less than a hundred permanent inmates, each and every one of them are considered to be highly dangerous to the population at large, should any of them find a way to return to any landmass.

**Funding:**

It is hardly private knowledge that the funding for this advancement in technology and safety is thanks to the contributions of the wealthiest resident of the Raft, the (former) billionaire Justin Hammer. After engaging in a terrorist attack during the Stark Expo of 2010 in New York, Mr. Hammer has since been relocated to the Raft ever since its opening, and he is one of our proudest acquisitions. Despite having no enhancements himself, Mr. Hammer's funds and assets were seized by Stark Industries and graciously given to the development of this secure location. Why someone so wealthy would want to kill civilians for fun is beyond us. Killing for potential profit is another thing, providing ample prisoners for a private prison system is understandable. Killing without any profit in mind is ludicrous.

That being said, Mr. Hammer's immense personal wealth and assets would not be nearly enough for the purposes of this facility. The Raft does not only serve as containment for many of the planet's most dangerous individuals, human or otherwise. It also serves as the world's premier location for developing controlled enhancements and any sort of advancement in weaponry, with a healthy population of inmates ready to serve the cause. Part of Director Ross' jurisdiction is being able to seize the collective resources of any individual or company directly associated with enhanced individuals as any kind as part of the fine print of the Sokovia Accords. This enables us to ensure that all enhancements and advancements can be developed with the approval of the United States government. 

An example actually relates to our newest inmate, who ran afoul of a well-connected criminal establishment in San Francisco, the local branch of an organization referring to itself as the Maggia. That franchise's leader, Santino "Sonny" Burch, was arrested and had his assets forcibly seized due to his connection to an unstable and highly volatile element referred to only as "Pym Particles." His attempts to manufacture this for himself, in turn, sacrificed all of his rights as a US citizen, and though he was decided to not be fit for service at the Raft, he is still imprisoned to this day with a life sentence. 

Many branches of the Maggia, including those in the New York region owned by Wilson Fisk and Leland Owlsley, have had their collective assets seized by Ross as well, for use in weapon development. Though Mr. Owlsley was killed, Mr. Fisk remains one of our rarest finds, even seeming to possess some enhancements himself. Owlsley's son, known only as Lee, is also a prisoner in our stay after he was discovered trying to sell manufactured weapons of his own design using Chitauri tech and his designs have since been adopted by our primary developer in the R&D department, one Phineas Mason.

Mason has become the wunderkind of the Raft during his short stay with us. Having been captured in 2017 with a few others (if you remember the destruction of Coney Island, that was instigated by tech he had personally designed for his employer, one Adrian Toomes), Mason has since elevated the amount of successful programs and enhancements we have been able to implement, all of which proves the validity of Director Ross' model. 

Other acquisitions that have since funded our efforts, either via takeover by Anthony Stark in exchange for us ignoring his various legal violations (his new CEO's efforts to implement renewable energy against the oil lobby is admirable but childish) or by their participation in illegal activity that could not be easily ignored, include Hammer Industries, Advanced Idea Mechanics, Roxxon Oil Corporation, Cross Technologies, Rand Enterprises, the Life Foundation and R.A.I.D./U.L.T.I.M.A.T.U.M.

A contingent of privately funded scientific efforts called Enclave and the remnants of the agency once called SHIELD are also now under our purview, as well.

If you are now employed with us, chances are that you might have been a former employee of one of these organizations. Since the work we do here is of the maximum effort, we have offered you quite a reasonable wage to continue operating as before, under new supervision. We would highly recommend not wondering where any of your fellow coworkers who have since refused our generous offer might have gone. Let's just say that the Raft features two levels of containment, the first for those like our enhanced individuals, and the second for those with classified knowledge that could easily be spread if steps were not taken to contain it for public safety. If you might be wondering where someone like Santino "Sonny" Burch and his former cohorts ended up, that would be your answer. Anyone associated with any of the persons or organizations under our legal jurisdiction, as per the provisions of the Sokovia Accords, has had all personal income and assets seized and sold, all of it in efforts to promote our nation's security and advancement by any means necessary. Keep that in mind as you guard the most dangerous individuals on Earth, and understand how gracious we have been in allowing you to possess what you previously had access to. 

**Chain of Command:**

All staff will report to any direct order from Director Ross, no matter what the content of that order. Formerly under the purview of the World Security Council, after their collective assassination in 2014 by one of their own, Director Ross has personally overseen the facility and all of the developments that it has since provided to our nation's security. The last Director of SHIELD, Nicholas Fury, is considered unfit for this assignment due to his tendency to go against government policy when he sees fit and his association with certain undesirable characters who refuse government registration.

With R&D, the chain of command is less apparent, and Phineas Mason tends to work alone on designs, occasionally bringing in inmate Melvin Potter for assistance in converting the various independently created designs into forms that can be mass-produced to the highest bidder. With many of the independently created designs coming with their own blueprints and guides on how to create them, this has immensely streamlined the process to find the most efficient and effective models for potential use by contractors and paramilitary forces as needed. Without the World Security Council, the Raft also serves as the last form of defense.

The Bioengineering division, focusing far more on enhancements on a genetic level rather than applications in weaponry, is headed by Dr. Farley Stillwell. He's one of the great medical minds of the past twenty years, specializing in augmentations of the human form that can be controlled and registered rather than being left up to the whim of the individual possessing the enhancement. He is the only other employee in the higher divisions to not already be an inmate serving for extra privileges, yet his devotion to Director Ross' cause is one that all of you should take care to emulate. Dr. Stillwell has _carte blanche _authority to decide on using inmates in order to advance scientific research anyplace it ought to be advanced, decided by Director Ross personally. 

It must also be noted, like in any other prison, that a hierarchy among the inmates will begin to form. Such things are encouraged to an extent to allow the belief that rebellion against the system is possible, and so Director Ross, in all his wisdom, has arranged things so that Wilson Fisk will oversee that social circle of prisoners. Most have had their enhancements neutralized or the tech that provided them taken, so his ironclad will and his immense strength makes him quite the asset to Director Ross and to all of you. Not to mention that he's an immensely charming man who loves a good Merlot. 

The _piece de resistance _of our happy little family here at the Raft is the Command Center, which provides the ultimate line of defense against any potential mutinies or riots of any kind. If you might be worrying, fear not! Director Ross has a countermeasure for every possible outcome. Two of our inmates, Samuel Sterns and Basil Sandhurst, are contained here on their lonesome, and they provide the greatest service for the inmates in the Raft. Both of them possess telekinetic capabilities, and this is enhanced to cover the entire prison in turn using our Zola-Ultimo system via collars provided for each prisoner. This keeps them all in a perpetually docile state, unable to do anything except obey any command given to them. Not only do they do this, but their gifted minds also help operate the Zola-Ultimo system, keep it in check, and cover all electronic communications at once. Both Mr. Sterns and Mr. Sandhurst are two of our model inmates, the exact sort of type you would wish for in any prison setting. Eager to give back to their community and increasingly shown to want to help their fellow inmates, they are the two most responsible for the safety of you, our wonderful employees!

**Defense: **

You might be wondering right about now how the Raft can be so easily protected even from any enhanced individuals not yet contained within these walls, and the answer lies in classified research done back in the SHIELD days by one of their star scientists, a Dr. Myron MacLair. One of the biggest concerns regarding protection for our troops is in the element called vibranium, previously only found in Steven Rogers' iconic shield. That in itself had been made from a large piece of the stuff reclaimed from Wakanda, the only country on the planet containing the element in a natural form. Unfortunately, the Wakandans have no interest in allying with the American people, and since they have no need of it, clearly it would be better served with us. This created a huge problem if any country, potentially a communist or socialist one, could convince the Wakandans to part with their precious metal. Dr. MacLair was the one who found the solution, combining a tiny percentage of the remaining stuff with steel and titanium alloys to remove its kinetic properties but make it the strongest metal in existence, referred to as _adamantium_. This lovely metal makes up the walls and security protocols across the entire Raft, making it the largest structure on the planet to contain this metal, virtually indestructible. Even if a Hulk might try to rampage through the place, he'd have to break down those walls first. Confirmed tests in 2002, at the New York branch of SHIELD, proved that it can withstand temperatures comparable to our very own sun. Now you can guard the world's most dangerous criminals without a fear in the world! Though Dr. MacLair is no longer with us, he is, like Dr. DeWitt, two of the bright minds that provide America with the safety and security it deserves today!

**The Avengers:**

There have been questions about the status of the only enhanced individuals currently allowed to publicly roam the streets in full daylight, referred to colloquially by the media and by their own admission as the Avengers Initiative. This group has caused Director Ross problems time and time again by continually refusing to only serve American interests, as is their patriotic duty. They are a multinational group, with only one of them, James Rhodes, having any kind of consistent military background. The one who literally describes himself as a Norse god is presumably not American, Natasha Romanoff is a Russian and a former spy within the Soviet Union, Bruce Banner is a fugitive from the law protected by Stark. 

Steven Rogers, known the world over as Captain America, has not been in active military service since 1945 and is considered to be a former SHIELD asset. Anthony Stark, the closest this group has to a leader and already a billionaire and celebrity, tends to protect the others from any kind of involvement. Director Ross has tried many times to get the group to see reason, but to no luck. Clinton Barton himself was a former SHIELD agent who has since reported to have vanished. 

Several of them have presumably been killed off during the event referred to as the Blip, and the only addition since made in the past few weeks is a woman identified as Carol Danvers. According to declassified files, this is the same woman who was able to singlehandedly stop an invasion by an extraterrestrial force called the Kree in 1995 and has been sighted intermittently ever since. Her association with the Avengers, a group presumably named after her, is a very troubling sign, in case they decide for any reason to attack the facility on their own whims. She is the most private of them and no information is found about her post-1989, very concerning. All that is now known about her is that she has been in contact with Nicholas Fury before his untimely death at the hands of the Blip.

**Conclusion:**

There's no place like home, and we hope the Raft can be a home away from home for you. As former employees of the various companies and paramilitary forces rightfully taken command of by Director Ross, we hope this can be every inch the occupation that your time at your previous line of work was for you. Each of your living quarters comes with a bed and a bathroom, as well as a kitchen and a sink. These are provided for free along with your salary, and you can certainly see the difference that a personal touch brings to life on the Raft. It can be a lonely job at times, since you are forbidden to speak to the inmates except to give orders. But you can rest easy knowing that because of people like you, America's interests are represented at home and abroad. 

Thank you for choosing the Raft, let's all float away together! Three cheers for the Raft! Three cheers for Director Ross!

<strike> _ **i have had it up to here with their games and their bullshit ive had it absolutely had it i cant stand it anymore can barely hear myself think i will break every one of them i will make them scream i will make them rot i have a genius mind and THIS is what its being used for THIS is whats draining me of my intellect i will break ross i will torture him in every way a person can be tortured and i will make him beg for death and make him choke on his blood for what hes done to me i swear to god he will rue the day he ever dared put me in here with these cretins they will all know pain they will suffer they will break they will all know exactly what i am capable of **_</strike>

**Editor's Note (on behalf of Nicholas Fury):**

**It must be noted here that this came along with every single copy of the publication passed out to the higher level employees at the Raft. Perhaps something could've been done about it, perhaps someone could've figured out why such an abrupt message appeared at the end that in turn caused every printer and photocopier inside the entire structure to warp and manipulate and scrawl out those letters in a way that felt like handwriting. **

**Of course, we know now who was responsible. Perhaps it would've been known sooner and drawn out more of a response than laughter from the guards and the collective assumption that some disgruntled employee was about to be forced into one of Dr. Stillwell's forced enhancements. The answer could've easily been ascertained by Director Ross the minute he connected it with the two individuals who were forced to write copy such as this as part of their sentence, otherwise they too would be subjected to punishment.**

**The day this memo was released was the same day that the scheduling software inside the Zola-Ultimo program coincidentally arranged a visit at the Raft between Director Ross and his estranged daughter, Elizabeth Ross. **

**We suspect now that the confluence of events was intentional. **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's two ways you found yourself here. The first is somehow you were really invested in a minor character from one of the lowest grossing MCU movies who became a particular favorite of mine. Or you came here because I linked to it from the previous lil yarn, based on _Captain Marvel_, which you can find here. 
> 
> Either way, glad to have you. This'll be a bit different than the other one. Every character here is taken from the comics or a previous MCU-adjacent property, so I'd highly recommend not looking any of them up unless you want the plot of this to be spoiled somewhat! 
> 
> \- G


	2. The Life and Times of Ava Starr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had always wanted to write something about Ava because even if it wasn't intentional, her experience with her phasing abilities strangely mirrored a lot of my own experiences with chronic illness. I suffer from a condition called psoriatic arthritis, which causes a lot of joint and muscle pain, lesions on the skin, and a weaker immune system, on top of the near constant fatigue and the limited motion. It took a very long time to find a treatment for me that worked. It has really affected me in anything I did for work and school and my relationships with other people. Constant chronic pain really affects your mood, it affects everything you do. It's difficult to talk about. 
> 
> So despite that movie not being my favorite, Ava was my favorite part of it, and I found myself getting really emotional by the ending, because chronic pain is not something you'd wish on your worst enemy.
> 
> Thank you for joining. Hope you enjoy. We'll be going to some weird places with this one.

The part of it that could never adequately be described was the pain. 

That pain drove your entire existence. It defined you. It became all of you. There were benefits to it, the pain drove you to be able to go through things you couldn't normally go through, made you stronger than before. But it was still pain, and it still hurt, and it had been there for so long that Ava had actually forgotten what life was like without it, though it was still a vague memory. There had been a time without it and a time with it, and everything after had just been it.

The pain had lessened for Ava for the first time in over a decade less than three months earlier. It had been her single defining memory. A woman called Janet Van Dyne, encased with the same energy that destabilized her, had been able to transfer a portion of it to her right before she was about to do something really unethical in the name of lessening that pain for just a moment. It had been an absolutely mind-blowing thing to experience. 

She had spent years forcing her body past its limits in order to function. The pain was in joints and it was in muscles and it was especially the worst on the skin, even if it wasn't always apparent, even if it hurt worse to hold it in and keep herself from phasing out. The experience of being able to move her arm in any direction she wanted with only a dull ache greeting it, not waking up in the morning grimacing and taking several minutes for the inflammation in her muscles to die down, the phasing causing her skin to crack open and bleed at times, all of it a constant onslaught. 

Ava had compensated for this for the longest time by isolating herself from everyone except for Dr. Foster, who was really the only one willing to tolerate the temper tantrums and the crying fits and all the self-destructive behaviors she engaged in to deal with it as best she could. Dr. William Foster, the brilliant scientist, who had risked his whole career to help a young girl with a condition that was unexplainable by modern medicine.

\-----------------------------------------

Ava hadn't even thought to resist. Everything had happened so quickly. She had just gotten used to this new normal, she had gotten used to the Langs and the Pyms and the Van Dynes checking in with her and Dr. Foster daily, each of them appearing at a different time. It had been a complicated couple months for her, and for the first time, she didn't do much of anything. She and Dr. Foster just relaxed and watched television and she'd help find sources and citations for whatever paper he was writing about the effects of Pym Particles on the human body, especially in the capacity of making it grow to previously unrealistic sizes. Being a research assistant of sorts had been a lot more fun than what she'd previously been doing. The only thing she couldn't forget were the injections, which the first several days had been about trying to figure out how long she should go between infusions of quantum energy. Too often and they worried she would phase out altogether, too infrequently and she'd begin to exhibit her old symptoms again. There needed to be a balance. Pym and Van Dyne (the two older ones, especially the one that had given her an infusion using her own body as the conduit, which had apparently helped her as well) had made some angry calls and suddenly a name she recognized was sponsoring her treatment and funding the entire group to figure out the best way to safely extract quantum energy. 

Nicholas Fury, the Director of SHIELD, personally funding her. She could've never imagined. Dr. Foster had burst out laughing when he abruptly sent an encrypted message of sorts a couple days later tersely explaining that he'd had no idea that she had ever been one of their assets, and that he was personally responsible for not investigating further, and thereby enabling her treatment while she was there. She had certainly heard through Dr. Foster (much more savvy than he let on) that SHIELD had been infiltrated by a group called HYDRA and that more than likely she'd been under their influence, but regardless, she was too pleased with her progress to get too angry at this Director Fury. As far as he explained it, the second SHIELD had shuttered, he'd simply transferred every asset they possessed purely to himself and the amount needed to help sponsor her was a pittance to him. He'd made a weird comment about how he never got to "finish paying tuition" but they largely attributed that to his reputation for being eccentric and galavanting about with people in strange uniforms all the time. At least hers was practical.

So every month an amount would be deposited to Dr. Foster marked "Monica's tuition" and they took it as some sort of code to hide her from interested parties, and then Dr. Foster would have Pym and Van Dyne show up and they'd spend hours going over digital files and whatever other scientific things they tried discussing to figure out exactly why she was the way she was. She would usually spend that time with the Langs, who would visit often. Sometimes it was just Scott, sometimes he brought his daughter Cassie along, and sometimes he'd bring his ex-wife and her new husband along, whose names she ever ended up learning. Hope Van Dyne, presumed to be dating Scott, because this arrangement wasn't strange enough, would show up less frequently but would always explain that it wasn't personal and that she was really trying to get all of the arrangements sorted to make sure that the wrong people weren't tracking them.

Ava did not say much at first, not during these initial visits, because she'd never socialized with anyone other than Dr. Foster, and he was far closer to an uncle than a friend to her (he was her godfather, at least). He was the sort that didn't really have friends either, so it wasn't for lack of trying. Once HYDRA had gotten a hold of her, they would go years without seeing each other. It was all complicated and needed to be processed. But she had never actually _talked_ to another person in a capacity that did not involve being given an order or Dr. Foster awkwardly trying to connect with her. Scott was only a few years older than her, all of them minus the kid were a few years older and she only had movies for reference. 

What helped is that Scott was a harmless enough sort (and she felt bad for kicking him into a wall once), and sometimes he'd bring along X-Con, those security consultant types he was working with, who Fury had apparently hired exclusively for the purposes of guarding the research that Foster and Pym and Van Dyne were doing. They were all odd and excitable sorts, who only identified themselves as Luis and Kurt and Dave. No last names, she wasn't sure why. Kurt would always refer to her as "Baba Yaga" in hushed tones and was genuinely scared of her at first, Luis and Dave were friendly enough (and got along with Cassie, good sign). She just wouldn't say anything. They'd all be eagerly chatting, and whenever Scott's ex-wife and new husband were there, who she eventually learned were called Maggie and Jim Paxton, they would just sit as awkwardly as she was, staring at everyone else. Ironically, those two were the first two she talked to, only because they felt left out too, even if it wasn't malicious.

They'd always try and include her at least. She was confused as to what they were getting paid to do, because they'd constantly show up and just talk and "shoot the shit" in Scott's words, and finally Jim began the interaction by telling her somewhat proudly that he had quit his job at the San Francisco Police Department and was now working as a private investigator. Ava had a generally negative impression of police officers so she could only respond by saying that he'd made a very good choice for his career, which made Jim laugh and Maggie look concerned, which implied the interaction had only been a partial success. Ava was not fool enough to assume that what happened in movies as far as social interaction went was the definitive reality, it was manipulated and twisted for the best impression rather than realism.

But Scott would bring in foods she'd never gotten to try before, and the second they discovered just how many things she hadn't gotten to do, they all collectively (minus the Paxtons and Hope, who found it rude) to try and educate her. She had never eaten a donut, so Scott brought in a box and they all observed her reaction. It certainly tasted like a pastry, and then they'd get disappointed that her reaction was so muted. 

"They're all extroverts," Jim eventually said after about a week of this. He and Maggie hadn't appeared every day, this was only the second day out of that week that they had showed up, according to the mental chart she'd been making in her head to pass the time. 

"How is that relevant?" Ava was not sure how else to answer. Every interaction was like a line of code, and every response had to be the correct line of code to accompany it, or else the program would not work. She had some experience with some basic programming codes like HTML and JavaScript and Python, though not to the point where she could make a living at it. Social interaction was simply another code. A life without constant pain was another code.

"They can go on for hours and don't tire of it," Jim said, "And uh, I suspect you're not that. Which isn't a judgment. It's not the same as shyness."

"I am probably shy," Ava said, though she wasn't sure. She wasn't especially concerned if anyone disliked her, she had never been an especially insecure person. It was just that she felt no point in making an effort at anything unless she could guarantee perfect success in what she was doing. 

"Maybe so," Jim said, "but connecting with people can be tough."

"Yeah," Ava said, not disliking the interaction but also too consumed with optimal results to understand the basic law of being relaxed and comfortable with yourself. She had predicted that Jim would be offended by this, but to her surprise, he seemed very nonplussed about the whole thing. 

All he said after was "Let's just play a game. The game is called 'How Long Does It Take For Scott To Do Something Stupid.'"

He got the first recorded smile out of her that anyone who wasn't Dr. Foster had seen since she had begun living with him again. So they sat silently, Maggie trying very hard to look upset at them both but failing miserably, and watched Scott and the others. Thirty minutes or so later, Scott would try to leap over the coffee table and slip and fall flat on his face, and the other three burst into hysterical laughter. Jim leaned over and said quietly, "wait, maybe we shouldn't have bet on the same thing."

"I have no money."

"Hmm, that is a problem, then. We'll have to negotiate with something else."

Maggie hadn't said much, but now she leaned over and said with a smile, "we are not teaching Ava how to gamble."

"Why not?" Jim asked, looking innocent as ever.

"We're setting a good example for her." She patted Ava on the shoulder across Jim and said, "I'm really trying to be a big sister for you in your time of need."

Ava blinked and it took a second to realize she'd just joked, so she let out a smile of her own to show that she appreciated the gesture. She wished it could be a more genuine reaction, but that's all she knew how to do right now. For someone who had never interacted with anyone else as a kid, she was doing as good as she could.

\----------------------------------------

And then, of course, it was all over. 

A dynamic had been established. It took the others a little while, but after some encouragement from Hope, Scott and Luis and Kurt and Dave all realized that Ava really couldn't be engaged with in the same way, and so the activities had changed to be a bit more including when Scott wasn't off collecting quantum energy for her. 

A card game, for instance. Eating takeout. Little things like that. Going over the results in language that people who were the Pyms or Van Dynes or Dr. Foster could understand in the slightest. Hope and Maggie sort of took Ava under their wing, and so did Jim, being a little more perceptive than the others, being a little more patient, even as Scott and the others went out of their way to try and encourage her. There seemed to be progress now, they'd correctly estimated that she'd probably go two weeks between infusions as the baseline for when her symptoms would begin to really kick in again. She would never reach a point where she would never be in some kind of pain, they'd all agreed that was more than likely impossible. However, it could be reduced to a dull ache, she could achieve full mobility of motion, and she could have complete control over her phasing in case she wanted to give "the superhero life," as Scott put it, a try.

That notion did not occur to her, and she still wasn't really sure how she felt about it. Scott would tell anyone the second he got an excuse that he had once fought by Captain America's side and that he'd gotten to fight Iron Man and so many of the other Avengers. Ava did not especially want to fight any of them. She'd had her fill of fighting, even if she knew that she had to have some kind of career path in mind. Did being a superhero pay? In Scott's case, he wasn't even being paid to be a hero type, he was being paid by this Fury and in turn paid by Dr. Foster to enter the Quantum Realm alone to get what she needed. Sometimes Hope would join him. They were all "independent contractors" according to her. Hope ate as little as possible to waste as few resources as possible so that she would not be too much of a financial burden on everyone, and she exercised as frequently as possible since exercise seemed to keep the symptoms at bay. 

The lives that came so easily to everyone else caused those same people a lot of confusion when it came to her. Romance was a concept she had never even considered or even remembered feeling about another person. She was not misanthropic, as far as she could tell, and she enjoyed people's company, but the sort of dynamic Scott and Hope had was not one she ever aspired to herself with anyone else. She had so much to decide. Her childhood had been taken from her by the damned phasing. 

The longest twelve hours of her life confirmed that she did like human interaction and would miss it greatly. Twelve hours was all it took for everything to come crashing down on top of her, all of the progress she had made taken away from her. It would all be gone. All of it.

Those twelve hours began with her waking up in the morning and Scott and Hope and Pym and Van Dyne all greeting her warmly and telling her they were about to gather more material for the next several infusions, enough for a good several months at least. They shared breakfast with her and Dr. Foster. Maggie and Jim and Cassie and Luis and Kurt and Dave all showed up, they all shared a big meal, she insisted on saying nothing because she wasn't about to try until she could guarantee success. Cassie wanted to show her the drawings she had made of her and her dad and Hope, all in their respective uniforms. Hers had been purely for functionality, and she still had it in the suitcase she brought with her. The three drawings had been labeled **Ant-Man**, **Wasp** and **Ghost**.

She asked why that name for herself, and Cassie had explained that it was her superhero name, designed to strike fear into the heart of her enemies. Ava had asked who her enemies were, and Cassie had laughed and yelled out "bad guys, silly!" Ava would've pressed further before realizing it was a "child thing" and this is what a child did if it did not have her condition, so she decided to play a little dumb and thank her for giving her a superhero name that would scare her enemies. She saw Maggie and Jim smiling warmly at her during the interaction so she must be doing something well. Cassie's tone did not suggest that the name Ghost was mockery, rather it was meant to be for her what Iron Man was to Anthony Stark, though she doubted she'd ever get to meet him and be considered a superhero. Stark never seemed to have an issue finding an enemy to fight and she wasn't even sure who she was supposed to be defending. Cassie's insistence that her phasing, the thing that had caused her so much shame, being "superpowers" was a strange way to look at it. 

Several hours went by, where she and Cassie continued drawing things, both with the same level of skill, Maggie and Jim in the kitchen cooking something and Luis and Kurt and Dave in the living room discussing something regarding their new client. A woman she did not recognize walked in at one point abruptly and pulled Dr. Foster aside, the only things she could overhear when she and Cassie snuck over to his office were "a favor for Fury." She was not sure Cassie was supposed to know who Nicholas Fury was so she said it must be code, and then a while was spent developing their own secret code in case of emergencies. 

They had just finished their new alphabet of squiggles, the woman left, and then suddenly Dr. Foster was screaming. 

Everyone bolted in at once to see him, face pressed against the window, looking down into the street below. Then they all saw it, squished up against the window, all their eyes widening at once, as people began to disintegrate. The mind went numb to try and comprehend it all. Cars were crashing, they saw a plane toppling from the sky in the distance, it was chaos, absolute chaos and the only consistent sound was Cassie screaming at the top of her lungs.

Then Dr. Foster fell over. His skin began to take on the texture of rotting paint, he began to scream and beg for help and Ava held onto him, hugging him as tightly as she could, despite them both knowing how she was never very physically affectionate, but not sure what else to do. Maggie and Jim immediately took Cassie out of the room even as she struggled to get out of their grips, even as she saw Luis and Kurt and Dave yelling out as well as the same happened to them. Ava fully anticipated the same happening to her at any second, yet she didn't feel any different minus the immense amount of panic she knew she was instinctively repressing.

Dr. Foster had stopped yelling and he looked blankly into her eyes and he said, very quietly, "you didn't waste any of my time, it was worth every second," and he crumbled away and even the dust he became sprinkled away into nothing, covering her completely. She could only crawl on her hands and knees towards each of them in turn, Luis and Dave saying nothing as the same happened to them, and Kurt saying "I'm sorry, Baba Yaga," before the same happened to him. 

Ava did not cry. It was not that she didn't feel bad, she didn't know how to express grief and loss though she was so familiar with it. She could only vaguely see Cassie staring at her in horror, seeing her own reflection and seeing herself covered with their dust and ashes. How was she supposed to do anything about this? She knew Cassie was more scared of the dust than her, she knew Maggie and Jim were still there, but nobody else was. Where was the rest of them? Where did they all go?

That had not been the end of the twelve hours. The end of the twelve hours had been the moment the door had been kicked down while they all sat in the living room, not daring to move or speak aloud, and there were guns in Ava's face. A man she didn't recognize was loudly saying that she had been charged with the deaths of Scott Lang and Henry Pym and Janet Van Dyne and Hope Van Dyne, and Jim tried to resist and get in their way but he was bashed hard in the face with a butt of a rifle and his nose shattered, causing Cassie to scream again. They all grabbed her as one, and she was able to phase away just once, grimacing at the pain, before she heard "gotcha" and something hard and metal went around her neck, and she couldn't do it again. She went limp as a noodle, completely overwhelmed, and they all dragged her away as she stared helplessly at the Paxtons, Maggie blowing her a kiss and yelling loudly that "this Fury guy I keep hearing about better do something about this."

The last thing Cassie said before she was inside the van was that she'd never stop being a superhero to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next lil yarn begins! If you've joined us from the _Captain Marvel_ one, it's gonna be a very different tone that that but hopefully it'll be to your liking! If you may be wondering about what "the _Captain Marvel_ one" is, it's right here! 
> 
> Comments, suggestions, improvements, down below!
> 
> \- G


	3. A Stern Talking To

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Samuel Sterns has spent ten long years in custody for what? Seeking out the truth? Seeking out the power of the brain? Gamma radiation exposure heightened his already brilliant mind, expanded it both literally and figuratively. His genius has been squandered on babysitting for far too long. With the "help" of Basil Sandhurst and that helpful artificial intelligence crafted from the digital remnants of two more brilliant minds, he can expand his horizons to where he can begin to begin changing things right when they should, bringing the natural order back to the forefront.

Only one place they would put him after that. He wanted to go there. He needed to be there, and it killed two birds with one stone that the metaphorical corkscrew of sorts he was about to twist into place was one that would get him put where he needed to be. He'd spent years worming his way inside of them, he'd spent years like the tiniest of pinpricks as soon as he had met Sandhurst, and now it was all going to fall into place exactly how it should. 

Samuel Sterns had grown up with the brain on the brain. He had been obsessed with it, obsessed with its function, obsessed with how it was essentially the truest essence of humanity and everything else was the living organism grown around it to protect it till it could reproduce itself. He had not the slightest interest in preserving inferior brains as a neurosurgeon but as a cellular biologist, specializing in brain cells and how to increase their function. If those functions could be advanced, then the limits of what the human mind could do would make an ordinary brain look like a horse and buggy versus the automobile.

As always in these kinds of stories, his theories were completely laughed out of anywhere he tried to conference at. There was a limitation to the amount of a brain could process and anything past that would no longer be human. Sterns did not react to these rude rejections the way the mad scientists in those old serials would, swearing on their lives that "you would pay, you would _all _pay!" If there had been one gift he had received aside from his world-class intellect, it was the absolute certainty in all that he did, and that it would eventually be for a reason. Any setback would in turn direct him to an even greater advancement. The worst part of all of this wasn't that he was wrong, but that he ended up being right.

Bruce Banner had been the answer he'd spent his career looking for. Grayburn College, a private school in Manhattan where he had become employed as a biology professor, was not quite on the same league as Culver in Virginia, but he dedicated all of his research efforts to gamma radiation as soon as he heard the news out of Willowdale and what this Thaddeus Ross had created in his avarice. Sterns was not concerned with the military potential of such a weapon but rather what a similar application of gamma radiation could do to the mind. Once he'd had a chance to meet Banner, and be injured during a fight involving him, his blood dripping onto his perforated head wounds, suddenly it all became so clear, even after he was subdued and taken into SHIELD custody as someone who had been enhanced.

It could do so much more now, so much more, and the Raft, despite its close quarters and exposure to lesser beings, was a perfect testing ground for Sterns to spend all his time practically being paid to run any experiment he wished, so long as he suggested the idea through one of Zola-Ultimo's algorithms. Those dick-measuring fools took the algorithm at its word every time, he became fascinated with the different sorts of enhancements he was spotting. Only one other inmate, the one who'd attacked him, called Emil Blonsky, had been exposed to gamma radiation and had spent all this time here with him, but he'd made damn well sure that he steered clear of Blonsky until he could find a use for him.

With all he had done for the Raft, for all of the advancements he'd helped bring him, he saw it as only fair to politely but firmly insist that giving him full access to the Raft, letting him command it as a center of human research, whatever the cost, would clearly be seen as logical. It was not. For some reason, everyone else had such an illogical reaction to his demands. Ross, especially, who tended to treat Sterns quite well in comparison to the other inmates, completely lost his goddamn mind, screaming and practically spraying spittle all over Sterns' head. It had since distended quite a bit outwards and his skin had taken on a lovely sheen of green, and Sterns spent his time admiring it as Ross had yelled his little heart out over "chain of command" and other military terminology that made him feel so big and strong.

He had considered his options then, considered with his superior mind, one that could run through equations so complex that he felt like not even Banner could compete with him fast enough. How did _Good Will Hunting _like his apples? Compared to Samuel Sterns, his apples were rotten.

The first plan, considered in a heartbeat and revoked, was to get the attention of the Avengers. He and Banner were still on good terms, at least as far as he knew, and he also knew from all that private correspondence that Ross thought was encrypted that there was quite a bit of animosity between the two sides. As this had been going on, those darned Avengers had destroyed an airport in Berlin fighting each other. They were too distracted to be of any use, too unwieldy to be the scalpel he was looking for, and for all his brains he kept on being distracted by Ross' increasing demands for enhancements and weapons to match them. He had to get himself right where he needed to for that plan. He considered other options. There was the part-alien woman that SHIELD director called a friend, who wasn't fond of Ross either, but he also suspected that as an impartial observer, she might be able to notice, and she'd taken out foes of great intellect before. He considered every person he could try to trick into doing his bidding outside before realizing he had so many useful assets inside as well. 

So Sterns had gone to Ross, apologizing profusely for the inconvenience, but having another good idea. He suggested that with the right application, and with that brand spanking new engineer they'd picked up from Coney Island, perhaps a collar could be developed, with the ability to track the individual enhancements of the inmates and counteract them. Not only would they do that, but they would provide a direct neural link to the system, by which Ross or a trusted asset (like Sterns himself) could control them and their movements, make them living action figures in all those covert missions against those enemies the Avengers refused to take out due to fear of "espionage" or "collateral damage." Ross loved that idea, and in a few months, Mason had created and had distributed those fun collars, which in turn let Ross take out a squad of them to do the missions the others wouldn't. Why have them all cooped up, all those lovely enhancements, when they could be the deadliest fighting force on the planet?

So sure, sometimes Sterns had to use his enviable mind and the neural links he'd created to a group of prisoners to get them to kill off some enemy in the name of American sovereignty over land, air and sea, but it was worth it, worth it for the links, which he always used perfectly. Ross had his favorites, and he always liked to augment the ones that didn't already have some, and all this made the slow plan to get back at him for his insolence all the sweeter. No one slighted Sterns, no one, and Ross would suffer for his crime, for refusing to recognize Sterns as his superior in that very moment.

Perhaps an impartial observer, as Sterns had put it, would see that perhaps all this came from a very insecure place, but he never forgot or forgave a slight of any kind, not one to his brilliance, and this had been there even before the distended skull and the greenish skin. He was more than a man, he was a <b>Leader</b> to the entire world, and soon enough, he would be treated as such, as soon as he had an opportunity so good that it would be the perfect timing.

Whatever he was conspiring to do, it could not draw the attention of those do-gooders the Avengers, least of all Banner. It couldn't draw the attention of that woman in those files Nicholas Fury didn't know he'd gotten access to. She'd kill him in a heartbeat, most of them would. For all his arrogance, he recognized his frail body would not stand a chance to a single impact from most of them. It had been one of their number with no enhancements, called Romanoff, who had taken him in. 

As time went on, more and more useful assets made themselves known, whether they knew it or not. He'd keep making ever so subtle suggestions, even with the collar that neutralized his own telepathic enhancements, his ability to read minds and speak to them and make suggestions that were almost always obeyed, but he didn't need it for that. Not like a suggestion that Basil Sandhurst, with similar enhancements to his own, be stationed with him, or direct access to the Zola-Ultimo program so that he may better monitor and influence the other inmates. All suggestions that an embittered Ross, flailing about on all sides, simply did not notice after his conviction that any maladjusted tendencies of Sterns had been beaten out of him. Of course, this meant that it drew no attention when two identical packages were delivered, or that the program randomly shut down as Sterns amplified himself using Sandhurst to scan for something approaching, something that he somehow knew spelled trouble, and would cause enough ruckus that Phase One of his little plan, the small revenge plan and the big one with him acknowledged as superior by everyone no matter where they were, would truly commence. 

He waited for that particular day, knowing it was coming through what he'd sensed, though such efforts drained him for weeks at a time. It wouldn't drain him forever, it was worth it for the real prize, even if that one would likely take months to execute.

Elizabeth Ross, after years of avoiding her father (ten years, to be exact), would see him on this day, for he trusted his technology too much, and one of those two packages would be for her and the other would be in hiding till the time would come, and then the Rosses would be broken for their insolence. 

\-----------------------------------------------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! A little more about Samuel Sterns, who was last seen in _The Incredible Hulk_. 
> 
> Trying something different here so comments, improvements, suggestions, all welcome!
> 
> \- G


	4. The Ross Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Betty Ross is drawn to the Raft after a mysterious incident and desperately needing her father, Thaddeus Ross, as a private donor to her department at the university she works at. There's no time to consider why all of these things might be happening in such a way. Why would anyone suspect anything?

Elizabeth Ross had spent ten years in isolation. 

Not complete isolation, mind you. Not to the point where she never spent time with anyone else. She had become completely consumed by her research, and she didn't really speak consistently to anyone except for an ex-boyfriend, Leonard Skivorski. That had become a big joke about her in her lab at Culver University, that she could hardly bear to socialize with anyone she hadn't been involved with. Elizabeth, or Betty, as she liked to be called, did not give the slightest of damns how that looked. Leonard, in a feat very rare for ex-boyfriends, hadn't been particularly concerned with the end of their relationship. That's why she'd liked him so much, because he wasn't an especially subtle person, but also had no temper whatsoever, no hard feelings, no bitterness. This is why even after she'd ended her relationship with him ten years earlier, all he had said was that it was probably a good thing as he was leaving Culver quite soon and he had no interest in long distance. Things had already been soured by the knowledge that it had been his fault that the Hulk had partially destroyed the Culver campus, alerting her father to his presence. But that had since been forgiven, time healed all wounds, and he'd been genuinely regretful for that.

They'd spent years not talking, as Leonard had gotten into some kind of accident that she still didn't know everything about, and then she never saw him in person again. He had moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, his hometown, to start a private practice and would never share many details about it. Betty would talk to him almost daily while immersing herself in gamma radiation, becoming an even greater expert on it than even Bruce Banner himself in a lot of ways. She discovered a lot of its properties and how it had once been referred to in classified intel as "vita-rays," the same sort of concentrated energy that had transformed Steven Rogers into the biggest hero of the Second World War. Banner and that goon Emil Blonsky had just been failed attempts at recreating that one-of-a-kind scenario and nothing more. Of course, she could hardly have realized how useful she'd been to her father in the past several years, even as he spent them all constantly trying to get her to talk to him again.

How Thaddeus Ross could have a switch loose in his head not recognizing how contributing to hundreds of deaths in both Virginia and New York over the period of several weeks, all in the efforts of proving to himself he _did_ have a big metaphorical weenie after all, was a mystery no science could explain. He'd enabled the creation of a monster that had been everything he'd spent years claiming the Hulk was. It had been his fault. And he had done so much worse after. Betty had gone so far as to take her mother's maiden name, becoming Elizabeth Lee for all intents and purposes, to avoid avid fans of her father as he became the Secretary of State. As far as the public knew, Betty Ross had died in Harlem, and he'd even tried saying as much before one of Banner's new well-connected friends, the billionaire Tony Stark, went on public television and outright stated that such claims were "bullshit."

To her immense relief, Banner never tried to contact her and never mentioned her once in any of the interviews he would take part in during the next several years. She did not want to be remembered as "the Hulk's girlfriend," even if she harbored no personal problem with Banner himself. He was the same sensitive guy as before, and she did miss him quite a bit, but the research mattered more. As much as Skivorski insisted that therapy would help and how much this sudden obsession with her work was a byproduct of everything she'd been through, Betty doggedly continued to go on. Skivorski never was rude about it, and always checked in, and they became far closer as friends than they ever had during their brief time as a couple. 

Time went on, years and years, and sometimes she'd actually forget when it was. Betty had stopped watching the news, she no longer had a phone, she only communicated with Skivorski via an encrypted line of communication to protect herself. Then Culver's funding was cut. The university had attracted a groundswell of new students during the 2009 class after the Hulk's reappearance made it a tourist attraction, but ten years later, interest had waned. The Hulk had inexplicably vanished in 2015 after he'd become responsible for destroying parts of Johannesburg in South Africa, and so his days as a viral sensation were over. Where he went, nobody knew, and so attendance plummeted and the university continued cutting all it could so that its board of directors and its president could continue enjoying cushy paychecks. The wing dedicated to making Culver the world's foremost institution in regards to gamma radiation research was shuttered. Betty was not unemployed like so many others were, she had been there longer than anyone else. She still was offered a position in what remained of the university's research division for a bit less than before. She didn't care about that, she cared about keeping the team she'd assembled over those ten years with the finances they needed. 

Many arguments with the administration commenced, until the real motivation came through: Betty Ross might have become Elizabeth Lee to hide from the public, but Culver had never forgotten who her father was and just how many millions he'd been sitting on as a Secretary of State with so many contacts in the private sector. Perhaps he'd be willing to help out his only child in her time of need. Betty knew she'd been suckered and knew she had no choice, not with the careers of her team hanging in the balance, and she'd have to do something she'd swore to herself she'd never do. 

So she called Ross. He was, of course, overjoyed to hear from her after so long. Of course he was willing to donate any amount Culver might be needing to help his daughter out, of course he had the resources for it. Of course he somehow knew about everything she'd been up to, he always had those computer whizzes by his side and who knows what they'd dug up. 

The next day, a bomb went off in the gamma radiation department of Culver University. No one was injured, luckily, as whoever had sent the incendiary device had apparently not heard that the department had been shuttered. But this did mean that police were called, and that all of Betty's life work would've vanished had she not kept such extensive backups and copies of everything. Any hopes of being able to immediately restart her work the second her dad's funding came back in were immediately dashed and Betty knew what would happen next.

Ross had called again, and as he was wont to do, he insisted that she immediately join him in the Raft, that facility for enhanced individuals he'd spent all his time at the second he resigned as Secretary of State after that whole debacle where he falsely accused someone of killing the ruler of Wakanda or something of that sort and the resulting scandal decimated his public standing. The real killer had been caught and actually brought to the Raft, as it turned out. Nobody knew where it was, and Betty did not want to know what was done to people in there. Had she had a choice, she wouldn't have gone. But Ross stated quite clearly that either she'd agree to go or he'd have a couple of his private security guys take her, and this meant she had to agree. That's how life worked with Thaddeus Ross. This is why he was a miserable divorcee in his elderly years mistreating everyone, because Thaddeus Ross only thought of himself first.

She agreed to go, even wondering who in the world would ever want to kill her. There had been no note, no motive, and nobody had been caught for the somewhat shoddily placed explosive device. It should be noted that a good several weeks later, after a police investigation on the device that had strangely been delayed was restarted, it was discovered that there had been fingerprints on the device, belonging to someone identified as a former FBI agent called Lester Poindexter. That in itself had been so strange, because he had no obvious connection with Dr. Elizabeth Lee. 

That being said, he was last listed as a prisoner at the Raft.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is again, a very different story than what I'm used to, but we're about to catch everyone up. I hope you're enjoying it so far!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, improvements, down below!
> 
> \- G


	5. A Lovely Prison Tour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Betty Ross visits the Raft, for her father has an agenda like he always does. The problem is that everyone on the Raft has an agenda, and sometimes they all happen to collide at once.

**April 27, 2018**

Thaddeus Ross would make sure all was orderly for Betty's visit. They had not seen each other in ten years. The best possible impression was needed, even if he knew he had the upper hand in the inevitable negotiations. Culver University was in need of funds and after all his illicit acquisitions, he had more than enough to throw around the few million Betty would need for all the precious gamma radiation research her little heart could possibly want and need. He had blanched when she wanted to become a _*shudder* _academic instead of a proud military woman to carry on the legacy brought down by each Ross since the Revolution. Since the creation of this fine country, every Ross man had sired a Ross heir who had served in every major war, and Betty had been the first to refuse that family tradition.

He had refused to fund her ridiculous fancies, education being a useless asset aside from how to teach a man how to kill. Yet she had gotten academic scholarships, grants and fellowships galore and made her way through with no help from him. Then she had begun dating that worm Banner, and she'd only dated one man since that he'd known of, that Skivorski fellow. He'd been alright as an academic went, though they still inexplicably spoke even after the relationship fractured. True to form, he had not snooped on her since their estrangement, so for the first time in a long time, Ross would enter an Operation, Operation Win My Daughter Back, with no knowledge of the enemy, though they had the advantage of home turf.

The Raft was his greatest achievement though he had failed in all other pursuits. Sure, he'd gotten to be Secretary of State for four years, he'd gotten to know President Ellis personally and had been quite honored to be asked. He could get those damned Avengers under his heel for a little while. But he had still not gotten a successful subject of the Super-Soldier Serum completely under his control. He still could not provide security for America the way it deserved. He had resigned from his post a couple years earlier after the incident in Berlin and after he'd pegged the wrong assassin for King T'Chaka of Wakanda, a personal humiliation he could never come back from, and so he had retreated to his beloved Raft, where everything was still under his control. The only place where it was.

He would check everything and it would be perfect, and then Betty would beg for his aid and he'd ever so reluctantly agree to do so, it being known that she really did need him after all, she couldn't do everything on her lonesome, and then it would be perfect.

\------------------------

"Is everything cleared, Sterns?"

"Yes, sir."

"Make sure you'll monitor our progress?"

"Yes, sir."

"I need your eye on us at all times. I am a high-risk target."

"I'm aware, sir."

Ross clapped an arm on Samuel Sterns' shoulder, the latter of which affecting his best winning smile.

"You're an asset to your country, Dr. Sterns. You don't realize what a debt we all owe you."

He walked off, whistling a tune Sterns couldn't recognize, and the good doctor couldn't help but smile on his own.

"You're not wrong about that, sir," he said, though Ross could no longer hear him.

\-----------------------

Samuel Sterns and his abilities to influence the mind had come in great use for Ross, and slowly but surely, he'd gotten himself ready for everything. With his polite request to have Basil Sandhurst, a weaker mind than himself but possessing similar enhancements, as a sort of conductor for himself without even realizing it, he could influence slowly but surely, have a separate component that wasn't actually needed for some advancement Ross wanted included with requisitions. A wire here, a piece of metal there, so that over a period of several months, Sandhurst would find himself adding to something he'd immediately forget about. A mental link between them was strengthened without his knowledge, to the point where Sandhurst could be anywhere inside the facility and Sterns could still influence him.

That was important for what came next. Sandhurst would write things he didn't remember, say things he didn't remember, and as someone who also could influence the minds of others, he never expected anyone to be able to do it back to him. He'd never experienced its effects, he had no frame of reference.

\----------------------

Betty had to take a literal helicopter from the Culver University campus (thank goodness it had been after hours and it had been posed in the faculty email as a series of engineering exercises) all the way to New York, where a separate helicopter had taken her a good couple hundred miles away from Riker's Island, to which a giant metal facility rose out of the sea to greet them. Landing on it felt like descending to hell. She had never been strong in the humanities, but she'd never forgotten reading _The Divine Comedy_ for the first time and thinking of Virgil leading Dante into hell. Was her father Virgil or Dante? Was the research money she needed from him serve as Beatrice? How could she possibly know?

She had promised Skivorski to call as soon as she made it back. He'd been requisitioned to serve some sort of "advanced client" he couldn't say very much about, he'd been much busier than usual. She thought of Banner again, though they hadn't been a couple for ten years now. She didn't miss him as a partner, she just missed someone she could discuss her findings with properly. Skivorski was a wonderful friend but psychology was the only scientific knowledge he possessed.

The Raft had created quite a stir a couple years earlier. Of course she'd heard of it. When it had come out that several of the Avengers had been forced into it (intentionally separated from the rest of its present inmates), it had caused a brief stir. Ross was discovered as its warden as part of his capacities in Ellis' administration and he'd immediately resigned after a press conference where he'd accused Tony Goddamn Stark of all people of engineering a political assassination on him. 

She hadn't known that he'd stayed here after. She'd hardly cared what had happened to him after. Skivorski had simply said the man deserved to have his teeth bashed in with a brick, and that it was merely his professional opinion, and she'd laughed hard at that. Being the child of someone like him does that to you.

She reasoned as the facility closed in around her, as the helicopter went inside of the rounded opening, that being the warden of the Raft probably paid more.

He was right there, hands clasped behind his back, a couple of strangely dressed individuals at his side, all sorts of firepower strapped to them. Betty had heard that Ross had been trying to compete with the Avengers in terms of enhancements for a while and this must be a couple of those results. The one to his left had a strange outfit on reminiscent of that Captain America outfit that the kids loved to dress up as for Halloween. Instead of the American flag, it was simply layers of black and white material, but an identical mask. Instead of that giant A on the forehead, there was a series of smaller white circles. Plus Captain America never used a gun.

Considering what Ross had done to Banner trying to replicate what had happened to Rogers before any of them had been born, she supposed it was fitting that he'd bring a similar looking guy around with him everywhere he went.

The other was even stranger, as he didn't have any kind of special outfit, but he did have a literal America flag tattooed on his face. Blond crewcut, big muscles, he looked like a parody of the sort of guy Ross liked to hang with. Also strapped to the gills with firepower galore. It would be pathetic if they weren't so clearly dangerous.

The two lugnuts were the ones who opened the door to the chopper to let her out, the black-armored one offering a hand to shake first and then the American flag tattooed jackass, one after the other. 

"Poindexter," said the guy with the strange mask.

"Simpson," said the one with the face tattoo.

"Dr. Elizabeth Lee," Betty said, not knowing what else to do but go into Professional Mode right then and there. The handshakes were cordial enough, these seemed like obedient lugnuts at least. They both seemed kind of annoyed that she didn't look scared of them. They had never met Banner, clearly.

"You're going by your mother's name?" Ross asked, walking up to give her a hug that caused her to tense up a bit and caused Poindexter and Simpson to take a couple steps backwards in response. Funny how they both towered over Ross and yet deferred to him so easily. Proper lugnuts, clearly.

"For privacy reasons, yes," Betty said, smiling curtly at him. Thaddeus Ross had become infamous even before the Sokovia Accords debacle that had cost him any kind of political career. There were lots of people who Betty wished didn't have a political career either, but her father not having one was a start. The last thing she needed was to be defined by the two most important men in her life. At least Banner never once mentioned her in any of the interviews. She never had to worry about him regarding her own privacy, to be able to do the kind of research she could've gotten done twice as fast if he hadn't been off playing soldier.

"You shouldn't be ashamed of your name, Betty," Ross said.

"I'm ashamed of being hounded by journalists when I should be working," Betty said, "can we please stop wasting time and show me why you wanted me here?"

"Of course," Ross said, still being cordial in front of the two lugnuts. He offered her his arm, and because she suspected Poindexter or Simpson might offer instead, she took it and allowed herself to be led inside by the strange procession. Betty Ross, disguised as Elizabeth Lee, was someone who had been trained to fight by her father from a very early age, and she knew she could take on the majority of individuals without enhancements. The problem was that her father had spent years surrounding himself with people with enhancements, and physical strength and technique stopped mattering so much regarding them.

\-----------------------

"Is your first name Homer?" Betty asked as soon as they had entered the labyrinth of halls adorned with pipes and wiring of all kinds, which seemed to be identical no matter where they went inside the complex.

Poindexter stifled a chortle while Simpson's face went to a glare and said, "Do I look like a Homer?"

"You've still got your hair, so no," Betty said, just making conversation. Her father could only smile, their arms still interlinked. 

"I don't have the BMI of a Homer either," Simpson said, sounding increasingly defensive. "I wouldn't be as good at my job as I am if I was a Homer."

"Ay carumba, don't have a cow, man," Betty said, causing Poindexter to put a hand to his mouth, still holding the rifle with his other hand, trying even harder to suppress laughter, knowing Simpson's usual response wouldn't work on the boss' daughter.

"Clever, you've got quotes," Simpson said, sneering at her.

"At least we were both alive to see the show when it was any good," Betty said, as a way of apology. 

"That wasn't my thing, I watched good shit as a kid," Simpson said.

"Such as?"

"_The A-Team_."

"Yeah, okay," Betty said. 

Ross gave her a little nudge with his elbow and the conversation stopped all at once before Poindexter fell to the floor. Betty was fully aware, of course, what dangerous individuals these two must be to have Ross' special attention like this. They both probably had enhancements of some kind. If Ross had been in his little lab building his own Steve Rogers for too long, who knows how many of them he'd gotten now. But she still wasn't particularly worried about that, Ross wouldn't have gone to all this effort just to kill his own child, and he wouldn't do it unless American security somehow dictated it. 

The halls were endless, and other inmates would stop what they were doing, and Betty even recognized some of them. The one that had caught her attention most was one who had caused a stir a year earlier upon accidentally destroying Coney Island of all places. Adrian Goddamn Toomes was there, though he gave her a salute when she walked past. Stopped by a damn teenager, apparently. Wonders never cease. The more they went in, the more it seemed as though inmates were placed by their proximity to the press, and she knew her dad was simply trying to brag a little. Of course the giant bald man who had once controlled the New York Maggia was over there mopping the floors. Of course Wilson Fisk would be mopping floors the day the boss' daughter showed up. 

So on and so forth, as Ross vaguely made arguments about how if not for random vigilantes, most of these clowns wouldn't even be here. What if Ross had been the one making the call, then they would be caught even faster? She got the notion from how dramatically Fisk's eyes rolled at the comments when Betty was looking and Ross wasn't that this little speech had been made a lot. She even spotted Poindexter mouthing the words to himself as he gave Fisk a nod. Too many of these people already knew each other from before they were in the Raft. Betty was not familiar with any theory regarding imprisonment, but it did not sound smart to have this many people who already knew each other in such close proximity. 

"How do you decide where everyone is placed in the Raft?" Betty asked, deciding to test her dad a little.

"Obviously, they can't know each other and be placed together," Ross said, with both Poindexter and Simpson exchanging a look that he didn't see. "Then they have to be placed in proximity to be where they'll be most useful to our efforts. They're not just prisoners, they're soldiers in a new war."

"Anything to be useful," Poindexter said with a flat affectation.

"Who's the war against, dad? No more alien invasions."

"Not exactly true," Ross said, "You don't pay much attention to the news, Betty."

"What do you mean?" Betty said defensively, but he had a point. She'd never been particularly informed, had always had her nose in her work.

"Well, there were attacks in New York and Edinburgh over the past several days. All rumored to be Chitauri. Sure as hell not gonna rely on some billionaire jackass with no proper combat experience to defend us this time. We're mobilizing. Getting ready for whatever comes next."

"Why Edinburgh?"

"No clue," Ross said, and for once, he seemed to be telling the truth. "Why the aliens would target fucking Scotland is beyond me. Mel Gibson is their only export."

"Mel Gibson is Australian, dad."

"Hey Betty, are you Jewish?" Simpson asked with a grin.

"Nope, I was raised Baptist and now I'm something of a deist," Betty said in response.

"Then Mel probably won't have anything against you," Simpson said and started to giggle until Ross gave him a glare. 

"Isn't that one Avenger a Jew?" Poindexter said.

"Maximoff. It's fun to keep track of the religions." Simpson said.

"She's pretty fucking hot," Poindexter said, to which Betty just snickered and they both went silent. Closer to dogs than people, these two lugnuts.

"Boys, can it," Ross said, "Don't curse in front of my daughter." 

"As if she's never heard a curse before," Betty said, giving a nod in the direction of Justin Hammer, to which she was able to hide her own surprise. That's where they'd siphoned off the little shrimpy bastard to? God, Dad was pulling out all the stops today trying to look big and important. Being Secretary of State clearly wasn't enough for the void that was his gaping ego. Hammer simply raised his eyebrows in return, and he too was mopping already clean floors.

"Do most of the Avengers talk publicly about faith?" Betty asked after a few moments of silence where Ross silently reasserted his status of the alpha male in this farce of a tragic comedy the world seemed to be engaged in right now.

"Rogers was raised Catholic, but he doesn't seem to have a faith now. All of them come off like they don't give a shit about God." Simpson said.

"Suppose it's hard to care when you've been attacked by aliens," Betty said.

"Who do we have? Most don't talk about it. Stark worships money, so he's a giant Ayn Rand nut, probably. Romanoff was raised Russian Orthodox, on brand. Rhodes was raised Baptist like yourself, Barton and Banner and Wilson have never said anything. The purple android guy, who the hell knows."

"You're very fascinated by them," Betty said.

"We're meant to replace them, eventually," Poindexter said, "Not a security clearance to say that, right?"

"I just had to court-martial Rhodes a few days ago, you can say whatever the hell you want about them," Ross said.

"How are you able to do that if you're not Secretary of State?" Betty asked.

"That's not a question I have time to answer," Ross said, and motioned to the first closed door she'd seen since arriving. It swung open on its own, and they all walked inside to what seemed like a communal mess hall of sorts, where a lot of other inmates had gathered. Fisk and Toomes and Hammer had all arrived inside as well, and she saw everyone congregating into groups, groups of people they must already know. They were all eating and all staring at them, and she was getting increasingly nervous and confused as to what she was even doing here. Was all this just so Ross could brag? He had never wanted to brag before to her. 

They made their way across and out a door on the opposite side of the room, but not before Betty realized that she did recognize someone, two someones actually, and not just from the news. 

She met eyes with both of them from opposite sides of the room. Emil Blonsky, who ten years earlier had damn near killed her, gave her a nod as he ate his gruel, alone a table and currently a regular size. The other one?

Jesus, that was Samuel Sterns. She remembered him from their correspondence and their meetings during the days where they were trying to find a proper cure from Banner, but he did <i>not</i> look the same. His head was engorged and swollen and massive, especially the forehead, and his skin had taken on a sick shade of light green. He had gained so much mass there that his head was propped up in a neck brace of sorts. He did not look well, though he did give her a small smile and salute her with the plastic cup he was drinking from.

What the hell did he do to himself? No way to know, because they were out of the room and heading up flights of stairs that seemed to be some kind of restricted access, for what felt like hours, before the two of them were suddenly alone in a room that looked like a very typical corporate office. Poindexter and Simpson had stationed themselves outside of the door as one.

That was that.

"What's the point of this, dad?" Betty said, too impatient to wait any longer. "Do you want me to beg? I don't even give a shit about my dignity, I just want to make sure everyone in my department can feed themselves and survive after all the hard work they do. Don't even pay me, I can figure that out. I'm here on their behalf."

"Betty, I brought you here because if we are to meet, it needs to be in the most secure possible channels, and this is that."

"Doubtful," Betty said, "did you see all the people in there? They've all been on the news. They're all terrorists. They inspire others to act and do the exact same sort of thing, Skivorski is even writing for an academic journal on the correlation between media coverage of enhanced individuals and terrorist acts. This sort of thing might as well be the new serial killer--"

"God, you're still talking to him?"

"Yes, dad. We're friends."

"Why would he want to be your friend after you left him?"

"Sometimes people can break up amicably and still genuinely love each other, just not in the way you imagine it to be."

"How do I imagine it to be?"

"Your idea for love is from _The Flintstones_."

"Yabba dabba doo," Ross said in response, chuckled, and then fell silent, not sure how to process any of this.

"Don't play dumb, dad. Two point five kids, white picket fence, that whole deal. It's prehistoric. The world is not the same for most of us how it is for you."

"I only had the one child. So one point five kids to go."

"Dad, either give me the money or don't. You don't have to make it this whole procession. This isn't goddamn Disney World, dad."

"Betty, I just wanted to see you. I was going to give you whatever you needed. Literally any amount that isn't higher than seven figures."

"Give me nine million, nine hundred and nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars then."

"If that's what it takes, I can definitely spare that."

"Fine," Betty said, and sat down on the chairs clearly picked out from IKEA or wherever he sent one of the lugnuts off to.

Ross sat at the other one, opposite her own currently stationed butt, and sighed, putting his head in his hands. "There's a lot of dangers out there, Betty."

"Lots of them in here, too. We could've just had coffee. Shave your head and that stupid mustache and nobody would recognize you."

"That's what it takes to see my daughter?"

"Next time around, probably. We here to talk philosophy or price? I know plenty about danger. Blonsky was in the mess hall, and we walked right by him as if he wasn't the last person to try and kill me. Your golden boy. Bet he gets privileges."

"He's kept in solitary."

"Good. Give me the damn money."

"Okay." He went off to his desk, hit a button, and smiled. "Done."

"Christ, not everything has to be so theatrical with you, dad."

"The second you're back in the air, you're gonna be listening to some excited voicemails."

"I bet," Betty said. 

"I'm willing to bet," Ross said, "that Culver shuttered your department specifically to get a private donation from me. They were blackmailing me through you."

"Of course," Betty said. "I have to play their game if I want my employees to get fed."

"So long as you realize your bosses at Culver are not your friends, and they're being very shrewd."

"I'm fully aware, I'd love to have a privately owned lab--"

"Then why not have one?"

"No no no, that costs way more than what I asked for--"

"There's definitely a place for you here."

"Ah," Betty said, smiling. "There he is. There's Thunderbolt Ross, at it again. I knew you had an agenda."

"What's wrong with an agenda? We can work together. You could do literally whatever kind of research you wanted. Wouldn't even have to be for military purposes, though if it was, I'd certainly never complain--"

"Dad, what is it about my research that's so valuable to you? You have Blonsky _and_ you have Sterns--"

"I didn't realize you knew him."

"Of course I did, dad. Everyone in gamma radiation knew each other. We were a small group. Ask him to do something. But I suspect that your interest in my research is less about helping your daughter and more about how Culver's got the patents for the developments involving its old name of Vita-Rays."

"No, that's not--"

"I'm not stupid, dad. How have you not been able to make another Rogers by now? You're telling me the two lugnuts outside aren't enhanced?"

"Of course they are, but it's not as consistent. Not as perfect. They can't hibernate with lowered temperatures, they can't survive falls from high enough--"

"I don't want to know how you found that out."

"Not with them, I haven't. They're as close to a proper success as I've gotten. And we don't just do that kind of research. We take the developments they've found on their own and update them for the protection of society."

"Fantastic. I've heard enough. You dragged me out here for the patents. And also, hitting a button doesn't do anything."

"What do you mean?"

"It means that you want something else from me. You want the research. You want it all. And if I say no, Culver will say yes, and then you'll have everything from the olden days, everything to get your perfect military man."

"Extraterrestrial attacks in New York and Edinburgh and you're telling me I'm not right?"

"I'm saying we've already got Avengers to take care of those," Betty said, and got up and walked for the door, but not before Ross grabbed her roughly by the arm, and spun her around, and glared at her. She tried to pull free, but she realized the issue wasn't that she wasn't stronger than him, but that he was betting on his own age against her, that she might hurt him badly enough that it wouldn't be fixed, and she didn't have it in her to do that.

"Progress doesn't take a vacation," Ross said, but Betty saw his grip loosen every so slightly and could pull free without badly hurting him. She strode for the door, she'd find her way out one way or another. The Ross family was known for their stubbornness and their rage, and Betty felt plenty of both knowing how her own father had tried to play her for a sucker. She swung open the door to see Sterns standing there, Poindexter and Simpson staring blankly into space.

"Sterns, what are you doing?" Ross yelled from behind her.

Betty looked down to see that Sterns was holding something, a metallic capsule with something glowing green inside the glass sections of it. He gave her a very sad smile and said, "Dr. Ross, I want you to know that this isn't personal." He took both ends of it and nodded, and Poindexter and Simpson began to jerkily run down the stairs, moving like they were characters in a video game, as doors closed in their wake.

Sterns looked past her to Ross and said, "but for you, this is personal," and both ends were pulled and everything flashed _green_, but also <strike>**_red?_**</strike>, everything was nothing, Sterns just smiling calmly as Betty felt herself getting more and more terrified, unbelievable amounts of fear. She had never had any kind of anxiety disorder but this must be it, because she felt herself screaming on the floor in fear as Ross screamed in anger, holding himself. 

Something hurt in her shoulders, something bad, a piercing pain like no other, and it grew and grew and grew until she felt like there was something _new_ to her even as she felt herself growing taller, not comically so but to the point where Sterns could quickly observe that she was now seven feet tall. 

\-----------------------

Sterns wasn't expecting that.

Honestly, he'd gone into the venture purely trying to get Daddy Ross, and didn't think much about what might happen to the daughter. He'd learned pretty early on that every single person has an individual reaction to gamma radiation exposure. He'd posited pretty early in his career that Banner had actually gotten it right, that he'd subjected himself to the exact same conditions that had created Steve Rogers, but it had a different effect on him. Good becomes better, bad becomes worse, that little speech from Dr. Abraham Erskine, the pioneer of gamma radiation research, had become legend in all the old serials depicting him. He knew Banner had seen it, and so had he in his own little social circle ten years earlier. The theory was always that gamma radiation is too inconsistent and unpredictable to be used in the way Ross had always wanted it used. 

For Ross, he'd made his own little cocktail for him. It would be fun. It would do something different than intended. He had planned the visit for when Betty wad there, so that she could see it for herself, he hadn't expected her to be there to take the brunt of it.

How the hell did Betty Ross grow _wings_?

That was fun. Sterns had immediately scampered off, but not before Betty, having grown a solid two feet, was now completely destroying her dad's office, writhing in pain and screaming in a most inhuman way. Guards were appearing up the stairs, he just immediately stopped and let them cuff him. No point in fighting now, he'd gotten his target and now his work was halfway done.

Betty Ross though, was a whole other story. The look on her dad's face watching her transform into the same thing Banner had been? Absolutely priceless. The way all the bullets the guards shot at her bounced right off? Even better. Sterns liked being in control, but something had told him, amplified by Sandhurst, that some sort of major event involving gamma radiation would occur and that it wouldn't occur here, but the <i>something</i> had told him it would involve more of it than had ever been used before, more vita-rays, to use the old term. 

He was pulled off to the side as Betty careened down the stairs, toppling down them, those razor-sharp wings slicing everything in her path, lights flickering, alarms blaring, what a show for the Raft this fine morning! More of the guards were appearing but those wings were slicing and dicing and soon there were lots of corpses in Betty's wake, shame, since she seemed so morally against killing as it is.

Sterns had meant it when he said it wasn't personal. Betty Ross had never slighted him the way her father had, but he wasn't going to wait any longer. He needed her to deliver the one two punch to her dad's soul, to break him both in mind and body. 

She made her way into the mess hall, flying dozens of feet into the air as the guards dragged him in as they aimed at her, the inmates scattering, only Blonsky staying behind and cackling to himself, hardly afraid of another gamma irradiated one. As soon as the inmates left, Betty turned in the air, her new wings spread wide, and Sterns caught a strange look on her face, something he didn't recognize, and then suddenly there were less guards holding him.

Sterns spun around, to see one of the guards...disintegrating? That was unexpected. But that must be it. That must be what he was detecting. A very different effect than he was suspecting. He saw it happening to other guards, slowly, as Betty tumbled to the ground and hit it hard, and he saw from the door her father rushing in and staring in confusion as his guards (not all of them) vanished before his eyes. Would it happen to him too? He was hoping it didn't, but he had no way of controlling for that or knowing who was responsible.

Then he heard the loudest most aggravated yell he'd ever heard, and it was music to his ears because it was Thaddeus Ross who was screaming it. Betty's wings slowly shrunk back into her body and her skin returned to its normal shade, and then she began to crack and fade like a sculpture, hyperventilating and staring Sterns directly in the face, reaching for him, not even thinking.

Sterns took her hand. He'd never been one for human interaction, and a little small part of him did feel sorry for her. He had not planned around this. He took her hand and gave her the best approximation of a genuine smile that he could manage, and said to her, "you're not your father. Be proud of that."

"Okay," Betty said, smiling back, and shattered into dust.

Ross screamed louder, and Sterns wiped his hands and laughed, fell to the ground and kept on laughing. He was not enjoying Betty's death, but Ross' pain. What good timing he had today! What good timing he was about to have! He laughed and laughed even as the remaining guards grabbed him and cuffed him and put a collar around his neck to restrict his enhancements. Sterns let them. He didn't need any of his enhancements right now.

"You're going to be connected," Ross said, trying hard to keep tears from streaming down his face.

"Okay," Sterns said.

"Your mind will be a conduit, yours and Sandhurst's as well."

"Okay."

"You will never think or feel again for the rest of your natural life."

"Okay."

"You're going to die here."

"Alright."

They dragged him away. Sterns let them. Let Ross have his little power moment. Even with Betty's unexpected transformation, things had more or less gone as expected, and he'd need lots of time now. He'd need the time Ross just handed to him on a silver platter. Then he'd be ready, and Ross would know true pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haven't posted in a while because there's a lot of personal crap I've been dealing with, but I'll try to more often!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, improvements, down below! Want to make another Carol story but I'm still thinking of how those might go! In the meantime, hope you enjoy!
> 
> \- G


End file.
